Life: The Second First Semester

I know that a post on my second first semester is coming a little late, but it is never too late for a blog post on the famous topic of university life. I left my last post at the beginning of last summer, where I indulged in the luxuries of: touring the entirety of Paris and lounging on the beaches of Barcelona with your sweet American friend, swaying to the music of my university’s Summer Ball festival with all your friends, to moving back home for the summer, packing my bags for a full 2 weeks of sun in Malaga which lead to monkey chasing days and blissful nights on the docks of Gibraltar, to then be boat paddling on Italian lakes with your family. Finally, gathering back all my things to take over to the house I would be living in for at least the next year.

Nothing could prepare you for the overwhelming excitement that would wash over you with the idea of moving into a house with your closest of friends. And boy, the amount of drama that has happened in this house, from the washing machine breaking approximately a thousand times, to tripping down the stairs in fear of fireworks busting down the doors, to putting together two wooden chairs from scratch that were anonymously sent to our house, to of course, those Monday nights in having dinner together, drinking an excessive amount of tea and watching films in the dim lit kitchen. These moments were absolutely priceless. Of course it isn’t all sunshine and roses, we do have our ups and downs like, never knowing when we’ll run out of toilet paper, or lights being left on in the entire house illuminating the whole street, pretty sure that our house could be seen from 2 miles away. Exaggeration? I think not. But I suppose we all have out quirks when living together and it’s actually more funny than anything else.

Then comes uni…

First things first, let me just state very boldly that the jump from the first year of uni to the second year is massive. The workload is x10 more and you have less time to do all of it. The weeks were running by, overlapping each other and soon before you know it you’re 4 weeks behind on class, you don’t even know what day it is, and suddenly, your assignment is due in two days.

I honestly did not even expect to be thrown into the middle of a sea of books and literary critics all at once. It was a very overwhelming experience that took approximately the entirety of a semester to overcome and learn how to deal with. Not only that but the amount of work load they give is perhaps equivalent to asking you to feed a shark without getting killed.

However, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I can definitely say that I can overcome almost anything now that I went through and experienced that semester.

Going back to uni after a long summer was great, I was feeling all the feelings I felt when I first came to uni. The buzz, the people, the vibe. After experiencing my first year of uni, where I experienced the joys and hardships of life, a lot of memory was made. But, to walk back through the gates after experiencing all of that it was just comforting, and all the memories came flooding back. I was all ready to begin the second year of uni, the motivation was present, as it is at the beginning of every year and typically lasting till the first day of class was over. Regardless the motivation was there people.

I know that you guys are dying to hear the various events that occurred during the first term no matter how tragically hilarious or sweet they are.

• The day we all moved in and had our first Asda trip commenced a series of early, late, unnecessary Asda trips, that sometimes were the highlight of our whole day.
• Remember remember the 19th of October, where me and my two house mates thought that a couple of kids were gonna shove fireworks through our letterbox and blow up our house. Yes. We spent the night, pretending we were secret agents  near to passing out at the sounds of fireworks, tripping and sliding down the stairs, then huddling together in a room, each peeking through the curtains to see which idiot bunch of kids are scaring us grown women.
• Deciding to pick your friends up from the airport the night that there was a storm, almost missing the exit twice, but decided that a last minute swerve was more appropriate than missing the exit AGAIN. Causing gasps from your friends in the backseat.
• Later the same night we all attempted to knock road cones over, me attempting to drive and knock them over, along with your best friend who’s hand was stuck outside the window trying to push a cone over.
• The night where one house mate was returning from work late, so we used the wigs we ordered for Halloween but never used, to create the illusion that a person was sleeping in her bed. Result. She screamed the house down, cussed us all and chucked the wig to the bottom of the stair case.
• Being picked up and being held for an entirety of a song to suddenly being dropped to the club floor in less than five minutes, summed up my entire year.
• Putting up Christmas decorations in our house for the first time. All I have to say is that it involved a lot of Christmas music, decorations, lights, and plastic tree leaves on the floor.
• Gig night in central with your girl, lead to us hungry for Mconald’s, but guess what? The ice-cream machine was broken.
• Speaking of McDonald’s brings back the night me and my friends went to the Drive Thru, I made sure to say my entire order in a French accent, then almost crashed my car through the order window. Good times.
• Out of all the BOP nights (The weekly Friday night event that our uni hosts) you’ve been to, this night the fire alarm is set off and we are evacuated mid dance.
• Lets not forget the day that two Ikea chairs were delivered to our house, with no return address, simply the name of my house mate. We have no idea to this day who sent them.
• And last but not least… most definitely the best, the Christmas dinner we made together before we all parted back home for the holidays

I think this term I learnt that living on your own and being on your own sometimes is quite a tough thing to do and so you must remember to work hard and also play hard. What I learnt is that though you are extremely busy, which in result leads you to be

excessively tired, you must keep yourself sociable. See your

family, see your friends and take up hobbies, these are the things that will keep you sane in your darkest of times, and will create beautiful memories at the same time.

That’s a wrap on my second first term at uni, stay tuned for my second second term post that will be posted very soon!

Thanks for reading,

Azraa x